Next Week At A Glance

This story features JB HI-FI LIMITED, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: JBH

For a more comprehensive preview of next week's events, please refer to "The Monday Report", published each Monday morning. For all economic data release dates, ex-div dates and times and other relevant information, please refer to the FNArena Calendar.

By Greg Peel

Tonight sees the release of the first estimate of US December quarter GDP and given current Wall Street volatility and confusion around Fed policy, it's difficult to predict just what response a beat/miss might elicit.

A flash estimate of the eurozone's January CPI is due tonight but given the ECB's stimulus package announcement, this once market-moving number will likely prove redundant.

On Sunday Beijing will release its January manufacturing PMI and, apparently, its services PMI coincidently.

The rest of the world will wait until Monday to release manufacturing PMIs, including HSBC in China's case, and Wednesday for services PMIs as per usual.

It's jobs week in the US, and coming hot on the heels of the GDP number, see above. The private sector report is due on Wednesday and non-farm payrolls on Friday. The week will also see US construction spending, personal income & spending, factory orders, vehicle sales, chain store sales and trade numbers.

Australia will see manufacturing, services and construction PMIs next week along with building approvals and retail sales. NAB will provide a December quarter summary of business confidence.

The RBA will release a quarterly Statement on Monetary Policy on Friday but on Tuesday will hold the most highly anticipated policy meeting in a year. Will they, won't they?

On the local stock front, we can now kiss the busy resource sector quarterly reporting season goodbye but being February, the earnings reporting season will be upon us in earnest. The season begins slowly next week, topped and tailed by reports from JB Hi-FI ((JBH)) and News Corp ((NWS)), with a quarterly update from National Bank ((NAB)) thrown in for good measure. Things will heat up the following week and then go berserk in the last two weeks of the month.

Strap in.
 

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